that the
maximum amount to be staked by one person on one contest should be 50
pesos. That each cock should wear only one metal spur. That the fight
should be held to be terminated on the death of one or both cocks,
or when one of them retreated. However, the decree contained in all a
hundred clauses too tedious to enumerate. Cock-fighting is discussed
among the natives with the same enthusiasm as horse-racing is in
England. The majority of sportsmen rear cocks for several years,
bestowing upon them as much tender care as a mother would on her
infant. When the hope of the connoisseur has arrived at the age of
discretion and valour, it is put forward in open combat, perhaps
to perish in the first encounter. And the patient native goes on
training others.

Within twenty minutes' drive from Manila, at Nagtajan, on the
right bank of the Pasig River, there was a good European club (since
removed to Ermita), of which the members were chiefly English-speaking
merchants and employees. The entrance-fee was [Pesos]30; the monthly
subscription was [Pesos]5, and [Pesos]1 per month extra for the use
of a fairly good library.

The principal hotel--the "Hotel de Oriente"--was opened in Binondo
in January, 1889, in a large two-storeyed building, with 83 rooms
for the public service, and stabling for 25 horses. It was the
first building specially erected in the Colony for an hotel. The
accommodation and board were good. It ranked with the best hotels
in the East. [In 1903 the building was purchased by the (American)
Insular Government for public offices.] In Manila City and Binondo
there were several other Spanish hotels where the board was tolerable,
but the lodging and service abominable. There was a telephone system
established throughout the city and its environs.

The press was represented by five dailies--_El Diario de Manila,
La Oceania Espanola_, three evening papers, _El Comercio, La Voz de
Espana_, and (from March 3, 1889) _La Correspondencia de Manila_--also
a bi-weekly, _La Opinion_. Some good articles appeared at times
in the three dailies first mentioned, but as newspapers strictly
so-called, the information in all was remarkably scant, due to the
strict censorship exercised jointly by a priest and a layman. There
was also a purely official organ--the _Gaceta de Manila_.

The first news-sheet published in Manila appears to have been the
_Filantropo_, in the year 1822, which existed only a few years. Others
followed